Mega Millions has a new option here in Indiana where you can buy 2 tickets for $3, but you are only in for the jackpot. I want to do the math on that, but standing in line at the gas station did not lend itself to solving the problem.

Meh. I'm not counting on retiring with what is essentially next to impossible. I'm counting on retiring with what is next to what's next to impossible.

No then your odds are identical to sharing 1 ticket 50,000 ways and paying $50,000 instead of $1. Lotto commission would love you

Well actually that wouldn’t be completely true because of non-jackpot payout combinations where you get paid per ticket without splittings, but still a terrible financial move because the expected value is always deeply negative for the non-jackpot payoffs.

In some scratch lotto games not run at the national level there were some positive expected value games that the makers miscalculated the odds and one retiree made a fortune off it and ever since then they’ve closed those loopholes

You don't get it. Doo the maths.

If you only buy one ticket for the winning number, and so do 4 other people, you only get like 20% of the prise. By the other feet, when you buy 10,000 tickets with the winning number, even if you have to share with 4 other tickets, you get more than 99% of the money. Not having to share as much more than covers the additional tickets.

Still, if your worried about the extra eckspense of the 9,999 tickets, just win a few scratch games to pay for them.